What happens when you check the organ donor box on your driver’s license? More than most people realize. One decision can help save up to eight lives and impact many more through tissue donation.

That’s why this conversation matters.

On this episode, we welcome Kelli James, Director of Marketing and Communications for Southwest Transplant Alliance. She joins us to share how organ donation works, why awareness is so important, and how a simple choice can create a lasting legacy.

Most people get promoted because they're great at their job—not because anyone taught them how to lead. Amayea Maat has spent years coaching leaders inside Fortune 100 companies and entrepreneurial startups alike, and she's tired of the sanitized leadership advice that fills most bookshelves.

Amayea is the Owner and Chief Inspiration Officer of Growth Peaks and author of the just-released Leadership: The S Bomb That They Don't Tell You. She joins Jeff Crilley to talk about what actually goes wrong when new leaders take the reins without training, why the old "my way or the highway" approach fails across every generation, and how situational leadership—understanding your people's language instead of your own—changes everything.

They also get into imposter syndrome (especially for Gen Z leaders managing people twice their age), a real coaching case where Amayea helped an IT entrepreneur unstick his business and sell it successfully, and why even brilliant founders have to admit what they're bad at and let go. Plus, Jerry Jones gets some unsolicited leadership advice.

Learn more at growthpeaks.net

Six years after the pandemic shut the world down, the mental health crisis it triggered hasn't gone away—it's just quieter. Dr. Christopher S. Taylor, founder and CEO of Taylor Counseling Group and an existential psychotherapist with a doctorate in counseling, joins Jeff Crilley to talk about what he's seeing in his practice and why he believes we're still in a "loneliness pandemic."

Dr. Taylor shares how his practice nearly folded during lockdown before telehealth saved it, and how Taylor Counseling Group has since expanded to over 55 therapists and 10 locations across Texas. He explains his values-based therapy approach—the idea that small daily choices that conflict with your core values quietly compound until you're asking "who am I?"—and tells the story of a client named Brooke whose total transformation after divorce left him unable to recognize her when she walked back into his office years later.

The conversation gets into the quarter-life crisis hitting people in their twenties, the pressure on 12-year-olds to plan careers decades out, and the link between Instagram's 2009 smartphone launch and the first meaningful tracking of preteen suicide. Dr. Taylor also previews his upcoming book, "You Are Here," built around real client stories of self-discovery.

https://taylorcounselinggroup.com

Doctors spend an average of seven to ten minutes per patient—not because they want to, but because documentation demands and misaligned technology force their hand. Roxana Valeton has seen this problem from every angle. She immigrated from Cuba at 21, worked front desk and ultrasound tech roles, and launched her first healthcare company at 25. Now, with over twenty years of operations experience, she's built MedTells, a real-time orchestrator platform that sits on top of existing EHR systems and other tools to unify data and align it with actual clinical workflows.

In this conversation with Jeff Crilley, Roxana explains why the healthcare system isn't broken because of bad technology—it's broken because the technology doesn't match how people actually work. She walks through how MedTells pulls live data across platforms so providers get consistent numbers and can act on them immediately. She also talks about her foundation offering free online certifications for women and children, focused on human trafficking, mental health, and youth development.

Right now MedTells is focused on federally qualified health centers (FQHCs)—clinics that treat patients regardless of ability to pay, a sixty-year-old program Roxana says not enough people know about.

Learn more: medtells.com

Stephen R. Orefice went from selling ads at Fox Television in New York City to slinging cell phones at the Poughkeepsie Galleria to running a full-service general contracting company in Dallas-Fort Worth. The through line? A relentless sales instinct he credits to growing up in a baseball family—his dad played in the Minnesota Twins system, his brother played D1, and Stephen caught for LIU CW Post before spending fifteen years coaching youth ball.

Stephen is the host of the Field of Dreams Business Podcast, where he's landed guests like Tommy Mello of A1 Garage Doors, and he's a general contractor at Huso Construction, which recently formed through a merger with the Uso family to cover residential, commercial, roofing, remodels, and more across the DFW area.

In this episode, Stephen talks about:

– How a Facebook message from a Christian family business launched his construction career
– Packing up a Dodge Challenger and two dogs to drive to Texas after the pandemic
– Coaching 10-and-under baseball and why he still keeps in touch with kids he coached fifteen years ago
– Hitting rock bottom twice and why he calls himself "the rule of three"

Huso Construction: https://husoconstruction.com/
Stephen's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenrorefice/

How does a 14-year-old yearbook editor end up running one of North Texas's most respected arts PR firms for over three decades? Kelly J. Kitchens has the answer—and it involves Paul Rubens, Judy Garland, and an upcoming AI film festival.

Kelly is the CEO (Chief Enthusiasm Officer) of Kelly Kitchens PR, a publicity firm she founded in 1995 after serving as entertainment editor for The Met, a popular North Texas arts and entertainment weekly. She's been recognized as a "master publicist" by both the Fort Worth Business Press and The Dallas Morning News, and journalists regularly refer clients her way—a rare endorsement in the PR world.

In this episode, Kelly and Jeff talk about:
– Her journalism roots and how editing The Met's calendar connected her to every arts organization in the region
– Surviving 9/11's devastating impact on entertainment PR and rebuilding her client base
– Her work across major Texas film festivals, from Dallas International to Lone Star to her own creation, It Came From Texas, which showcases exclusively Texas-made films
– The TCM Classic Film Festival community she's helped build over 16 years
– An upcoming AI film festival she's planning with Dallas Video Fest founder Bart Weiss, and why she thinks the film world needs to engage with AI rather than dismiss it

Learn more: kellykitchenspr.com

Roughly 28,000 children are in the Texas foster care system right now. When a child is removed from their home—often in an emergency—they may arrive at a shelter or foster placement with nothing but the clothes on their back, or sometimes less.

Kelly and Richard Archibald founded Qavah The Storehouse to change that moment. Their nonprofit assembles "first night bags": brand-new backpacks stocked with pajamas, an outfit for the next day, toiletries, and a handwritten note of encouragement. They deliver them to CPS offices and the Children's Advocacy Center so caseworkers can hand a bag to a child on the worst night of their life.

Richard speaks from firsthand experience. As a boy, he and his brothers were taken to a shelter after his mother's arrest—given only a thin gown, nothing else. That memory fuels everything the organization does. Kelly, a small business owner who also serves on the Child Welfare Board, walks through exactly what goes into each bag and explains the standard they hold themselves to: "if our children were going to spend the night with somebody."

The episode also covers Qavah's reunification parties for families coming back together, their donations of Halloween costumes to homeless student-parents at DISD, and the couple's popular podcast featuring foster care alumni and survivors telling their own stories. Their next goal is a brick-and-mortar location where kids can walk in and pick out clothes and supplies for themselves.

https://www.qavahpodcast.com/qavahstorehouse

Doctors told Catherine Ogie she had a 15% chance of survival. Blood clots in her heart and lungs, three blocked arteries, stomach paralysis—her body was shutting down. She refused surgery and bet everything on faith, lifestyle changes, and becoming her own fiercest health advocate.

Catherine Ogie is the author of the bestselling book Unshakable and a U.S. Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award recipient. On this episode, she walks Jeff Crilley through the full timeline of her health crisis, starting from the October 2022 emergency room visit where she learned she'd already had a heart attack without knowing it.

What this episode covers:
– The cascade of diagnoses: heart failure, blood clots, esophageal thinning, and stomach paralysis
– How switching to UT Southwestern and Dr. Araj may have saved her life when he flagged her medications as harmful
– The role of forgiveness, grounding, Nigerian food cravings, and worship in her recovery
– Getting fired from her job of 16 years—and getting it back 30 minutes later
– Why she wrote Unshakable and what she wants readers to take from it

Connect with Catherine Ogie: https://www.facebook.com/people/Catherine-Ogie/100009199241811/

Janet Bernstein quit her corporate job on August 19 and had a bestselling book out by October 10. That kind of urgency doesn't come from ambition—it comes from someone who finally stopped ignoring what was wrong.

Janet is a keynote speaker, ten-time author, and Chief Glow Strategist who helps accomplished women stop shrinking and start leading out loud. On this episode, she sits down with Jeff Crilley to talk about the childhood experiences that turned her into a people pleaser (17 schools will do that), the corporate burnout she refused to call burnout until a single weekend of reading changed everything, and why she wrote Let Her Glow to document the messy, honest process of finding herself again.

Topics covered:
– Growing up with a mother who had severe mental illness and how constant moves shaped her identity
– The signs of burnout she kept ignoring—driving to work in silence, losing interest in things she loved
– How 46 women became first-time published authors through Janet's collaborative book projects
– Her practical burnout recovery steps: unplug, ask hard questions, and stop living someone else's version of your life
– A sneak peek at book number eleven, Rebellious Leadership, based on her LinkedIn newsletter

Learn more at letherglow.com

The Dallas International Film Festival is turning 20, and Jeff Crilley brings three of the people running it into the studio to talk about what's in store this year — and where Dallas filmmaking is headed.

James Faust, the festival's Artistic Director, has been involved since the beginning. He recounts the early days of partnering with AFI and rattles off a guest list that includes Robert De Niro, Charlize Theron, Jeremy Renner (who showed up with The Hurt Locker before anyone knew it was an Oscar film), and Adrian Brody. Dallas Film Commissioner Katie Schuck explains how Texas's newly funded incentive program and the Taylor Sheridan effect have turned DFW into the state's top production hub. Creative Director Austin Flores breaks down this year's industry conference, featuring keynotes from Warner Brothers co-chair Michael DeLuca and Sing Sing director Greg Kwedar, plus 11 panels on producing, funding, documentary filmmaking, and more.

The group also gets into the AI question head-on — where it might help with color correction or sound sweetening, and where it crosses a line into replacing real people on set. James shares a specific example of a Swedish film that used AI to clone actors' voices for an English dub, and why that felt like a step too far.

This year's festival screens 100+ films from around the world at Cinematopolis and the Texas Theater, with the conference hosted at the Virgin Hotels Dallas. Opening night features The Last Shot with Jaime Pressly, Baron Davis, and Dallas native Johnny Simmons.

diffdallas.org